Educational Hunting Stories - F

Elk Hunter For Breakfast? In 2017, I was unnerved at pre- dawn. I leave my Coleman lantern mantle glowing on cold nights to circulate air and prevent frost buildup on the tent ceiling. At 5:20 AM I eased up in my sleeping bag and turned up the lantern flame in preparation to go out to “heed nature” before dressing. An immediate super loud snarl warped into a scream. That mountain lion had not just fortuitously been walking by at the moment. It must have been bedded down ten to fifteen feet outside my door waiting for me to again emerge at predawn. I yelled back at it - and gave it ten minutes to leave before I headed to the latrine pole. (Yes, I listened carefully while sitting there.) I went to camp after noon to see what had occurred. The snow had burned off outside my tent, so there were neither tracks nor indication of a bed. The snowy tree line was a different story. Multiple fresh lion tracks wove in and out of the trees for several hundred yards. The photo shows a 4.5-5-inch track. Over the next few days, I intercepted more fresh lion tracks during my hunt prowling. The “hunter grapevine” disclosed that another single hunter five miles away also had a lion enter his camp. Additional evidence of puma presence was that not one deer nor deer tracks were observed, a highly unusual occurrence. In addition, the elk population in the